The basic idea behind this wacky business idea is a gym equipped exclusively with equipment that has extensive sensors attached to each of the machines. Each time a user uses one of the machines, they swipe an ID card on a reader mounted on the machine and their work out is recorded (data is wirelessly gathered). Gym users then get a continuous report on their work out program, broken into activities, effort & resistance levels, calories burned, adherence to a workout program, etc, etc, etc. Automated suggestions are attached to the analysis (e.g. “You seem to be ready for a higher resistance level on the elliptical trainer” or “Increasing your time on the bicycles by 4 minutes would be worthwhile”). If you go longer than usual without a visit to the gym, it could even send you e-mail reminders to get back into your work out routine.

This may be interesting in and of itself, but then a variety of interesting applications could be built on top of this “platform” for the gym users. One example might be fantasy sports leagues where instead of the players being modeled on real sports stars, they are simulated based on the users’ work out data. More core training could give your representative (or avatar) more power in the game. Doing cardio could make them faster, missing work outs makes it more likely your player will have an injury, etc, etc. On a regular basis, these simulations play a variety of games with one another, with the results of each match being sent to all the people involved and (hopefully) provide them with more motivation to continue working out and pushing themselves.

Say a group of friends decide to compete in the CyberGym’s 2010 World Cup. They pick a country to represent them (Spain or Netherlands might be good choices), and their work outs fuel how well their virtual counterparts play. In each match they play against other people working out at the same gym (or other gyms that are part of the franchise). There could be a beginner’s league, where stats are based on improvement (so the new guy who is working hard at getting into a gym routine could be the most valuable player), or an advanced league (where the hard core gym rats would clean up). Your team mates will encourage you to stick to your work out schedule (to increase the odds of winning), and on a regular basis you get e-mailed a description of each match, perhaps personalized with impressive goals your avatar made if you’ve been doing well, or fumbles if you’ve been doing poorly. Each match description would tie the performance to the user’s work out routine, and have suggestions for modifying the routine to improve the routine and to make the avatar play better in the future.

Similar leagues could be available for tennis, basketball, or any sport that was of interest to people using the gym.

Would such a system make you more interested in working out, or would it just depress you that people are playing virtual sports instead of real ones?

I always had the idea of drilling math questions or well I guess any sort of trivia / learning experience while running on a treadmill etc. Or perhaps figure out some sort of way to do work that requires mental exercising. I’m an engineer, so it’d be pretty wicked to be able to engineer stuff while working out. It’s pretty tough to work a mouse and keyboard while running though.

Nike+ accomplishes this for running to a certain extent, in that you can compare your results to the community, but it would be interesting to take it one step further, like you describe.

It would be interesting if the ID card could be in the form of a USB key that you can connect to the computer and do the fanstasy league part online (eliminating the need for local gym buddies and allowing for more active communities while the system catches on).

The hardest part would be getting the equipment into gyms. I don’t think it would be very hard for manufacturers to implement into new equipment since they already keep track of these stats: they’d just need to enable exporting. The hard part would be getting gyms to upgrade their equipment. That could take a long time. Maybe it would be more effective to pitch it to the home fitness equipment market.

Good idea if you only use cardio or weight machines…. the flaw with the gym aspect concerns free weights.

If I’m benching using a barbell, or picking up a set of dumbells, I’m not sure how a swipe would work to let the card/software know what I’m doing – ie. reps, force, intensity etc…… The swipe works great on machines, but most people who go to the gym use both machines and free weights….and i suspect (opinion only) that most advanced intermediates and advanced gym goers use almost exlusively free weights.